Interviews: Sunfall

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Metalcore band, Sunfall from the UK. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

Sunfall was a collaboration between myself and our vocalist Sam. The sun came from Sam’s history in Australia, and that country being heavily symbolic of happiness and hope for him. At the time of the band’s conception in the UK, it was already on his mind that he’d want to return to find happiness. The fall part came from myself and was representing to me, the fall into many negative spaces in my life from depression to bad relationships and so on. All in all, Sunfall captures the dualities of life and the emotions that makes us all who we are when they come together.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

Heavy music is our common factor as a band. We all absolutely love it and have our own specific bands and subgenres in it that we gravitate to. The energy and integrity of the music speaks to all of its fans and can evoke such a strong reaction in people. So it’s been great for the band to take the energy and release heavy music has given us, and pay it back in form of our own music. It goes to say though that as a band, we love a load of non-heavy genres too and they will all eventually have their influences on our iteration of heavy music.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

The first time we actually met was when the band was formed. I started this project having met our original drummer Jacob, at university, who immediately suggested we get a band going to support the demo’s I’d been writing for a solo online project. Then through a facebook advertisement on our uni page looking for band mates, the other original members, Sam and James joined the band. Our current drummer Ryan Wood and I had met before he joined the band at an house party and he had also previously been our sound engineer at a couple of local shows.

4. Each band members favourite band?

My own favourite band has to be Architects. There are many bands I’ve loved but that band pushed me to write music that really speaks to me. Ryan’s favourite band is Sikth. That band really pushed him and his technical abilities in playing and song writing. He wouldn’t be the drummer he is today without them. Sam’s favourite band is System of a Down. System really opened Sam’s mind to just how creative vocals and music can get. The bands fusion of metal with Armenian folk music is absolutely amazing and has really set the bar for how much character you can get into songs. James’s favourite band is Metallica. This is the band that inspired James to pick up the guitar originally and then bass guitar. The riffs and the song arrangements really spoke to James and sparked his deep love of heavy music.

5. Who/what inspires you to write songs?

Our inspirations really come at us from all angles. So far already, we’ve been influenced by life experiences, emotions and even physical places we’ve been to. We always find ourselves in a position where we just have a need to sit down and write.

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last gig was the Mortal Metal festival at the phoenix bar in high Wycombe, as part of our last run of shows before our hiatus back in November2019. Unfortunately, our return from our hiatus was put on hold indefinitely by the ongoing pandemic. But now we are releasing music again, we hope we can play a show again someday soon.

7. Where would you like to play?

We’ve thought about this one for a while and we definitely have a bucket list of venues and places we want to play. In the UK it’s definitely an ambition of mine to play at the Camden roundhouse, that venue is absolutely stunning. Other dreams of ours include the Brixton O2 academy and Ally Pally. In terms of geographical location, we’d absolutely love to take Sunfall to mainland Europe. It’s already well known that mainland Europe has always been so loving and accepting of alternative and heavy music, and my previous experiences playing shows there have absolutely backed this up and has me dying to go back again.

8. Who would you like to support?

In terms of bands, a group we’d absolutely love to support is Loathe. Along with the world class songs they write, the name they’ve made for themselves as a band from the British underground scene is monumental. Not to mention they are all absolutely sound people who we’d definitely enjoy the company of. Another band we’d love to support is Polar. Our previous drummer Noah went on to become Polar’s drummer. He was an absolute pleasure to play with at shows and a great guy to hang around and converse with. We’d love to experience that again and see Polar absolutely kill it onstage.

9. Who not?

We can’t name any specific bands we wouldn’t want to play with; however, we wouldn’t enjoy supporting a band that we wouldn’t get along with in person. The best shows we have had beyond the shows themselves, are the ones where all the bands on the bill have a great comradery going on.

10. Any of you suffered from stage fright? Any tips for beginners on how to beat that?

We’ve all experienced it to varying degrees at different times. The most nervous I’d been was actually playing a school function years ago by myself onstage. I played black magic woman by Santana and some Avenged Sevenfold track. What I found that made me nervous and have stage fright was the thought of messing up and sounding awful in front of all these people. So, my recommendation to beginners is practice your pieces/songs loads. Be confident in your abilities to play the music and that you know them. Then fake being confident as you walk onstage, play and walk off. Even if you make mistakes, keep faking it…. it’s true when people say the audience won’t notice if you just act confident and pretend like mistakes never happened. Then do it all again, keep performing!

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

As individuals, we have such a wide range of inspirational bands who inspire us to a big level. To name a few; Architects, Sikth, Slipknot, Fit For An Autopsy and system of a down.

12. What’s the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

At this stage in this band’s life, we don’t have many stories of weird fan requests. But one that stands out, was that at one show a fan was buying a piece of band merch from me….however …..he asked if our vocalist Sam could touch the t[1]shirt before he took it. It took us both by surprise and we welcomed it haha! But yeah as far as our stories go, it was pretty weird.

13. What do you think of your fans?

We truly have some amazing fans that we are so incredibly grateful for who have shown us a humbling level of love and appreciation. They do this by constantly listening to our music, coming to shows we play and buying multiple pieces of our merch every time we release new items. A special shout out to Jimmy and Nathan who really have blown us away by their support. We love you guys and we are glad you found and enjoy the music we make.

14. What do you think of our site?

It immediately is very professionally presented. The colour scheme is easy on the eyes and the site isn’t a crowded mess of text which a lot of websites tend to become. I was confused as to what Traxk by track is, maybe a typo? The individual pages the website offers are great! having a section for free music, music to buy and so on also gives the website areas that makes you want to explore.

15. Something to add?

Thank you for taking the time to interview us and getting to know the band! You also gave us something new to think about, such as who would we not want to support which is something we’ve never actually talked about as a band before haha! Our new single ‘Harakiri’ is released on March 12th, we hope it’s a track you all are able to relate to and enjoy.